Employee Engagement Success through the Eyes of a Product Manager

When I started sketching ideas for YourMatch at the beginning of last year, I had four key objectives in mind. The new homepage experience needed to be personalized, actionable, feel local to users thousands of miles apart, and last but certainly not least, it needed to be inspiring.

Today, YourMatch is no longer a set of sketches. We’ve released the new platform to three quarters of our clients and by the end of the month all 140 will be using it.

Due to the impressive diversity of the VolunteerMatch client network, I’ve seen YourMatch bend and mold to showcase programs of every shape and size – and I’ve made a few observations along the way. What follows are a few tips and tricks from the eyes of a Product Manager to help you achieve those four key goals we had in mind when we set out to build YourMatch:

Make YourMatch Personal

To make YourMatch feel personal, it’s a great idea to let your volunteers set a volunteering goal in their “Your Activities” tab. Volunteers can decide on an hourly goal and in what time period (this year, month or week) they want to achieve it. Not only does this make YourMatch feel like a personalized destination for volunteers, it encourages them to visit often to record their progress.

Make YourMatch Actionable

The “Your Activities” tab also presents the opportunity to make YourMatch actionable. As an administrator you can choose up to four “action buttons” to direct your volunteers to various features in the site. The buttons you select get a lot of visibility since they’re one of the first things volunteers will see when they come to the site. Be strategic and highlight actions that align with your program. We guarantee you’ll see results!

Make YourMatch Local

YourMatch recognizes volunteers’ locations and provides content accordingly. As an administrator, you can tailor the local experience even more by taking advantage of the “Promoted Campaign” tab. Do you use Special Event Manager to create office micro-sites? What about regional volunteer councils? Try promoting these campaigns on your homepage and you’ll ensure that volunteers see local content every time they come to the site.

Make YourMatch Inspiring

Finally, YourMatch provides many opportunities for you to present inspiring content to your volunteers – from larger images, to more space for messaging and better options for customized branding. But stay tuned for the ultimate inspiration coming next month with the release of the “Impact Tab,” where you’ll be able share your program’s impressive reach to your volunteers (no screenshot yet – you’ll have to wait for launch!)

My favorite feature of the upcoming “Impact Tab” is a new gauge where you can set a company-wide goal with a custom filter that lets you be very specific about the hours or signups that count towards the goal. We’ve also developed a new interactive interface that breaks down the data by one of your site-registration fields (such as “department,” “operating company,” or “office location,”) so volunteers can see how they fit into the big picture.